Building a Better Billing Machine
Vendors plan necessary enhancements to systems to prepare for a busy 2012
By George Winslow -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/17/2011 12:01:00 AM
The Future of BXF
As stations and channels look to more closely integrate their traffic and billing systems with other parts
of their operations, using the BXF—the Broadcast Exchange Format that was launched as a SMPTE
standard several years ago—would seem to be the obvious solution.
“It offers a number of efficiencies, and a number of our clients have [implemented it with] live logs, which has been an enormous and very benefi cial change to broadcast work flows,” says Crist Myers, president and CEO of Myers Information Systems.
But so far, integrations using BXF have proceeded at a modest pace, generally occurring when stations acquire new automation systems.
“We are finally seeing beta examples of it being put to use,” says Eric Mathewson, founder and CEO at WideOrbit. “Everyone believes it is a technology that has the capability to improve operations. But I don’t see a big groundswell of support from stations saying we have to do this because it will cut out a lot of expenses.”
Michael Atkin, founding partner and president of BroadView, notes that most RFPs from stations for upgrades now include a request for BXF.
“But of the ones that go through, less than 50% are actually putting BXF to air,” Atkin notes. “The reality is that it is going to take a long time.”
Others note, however, that demand for BXF will continue to grow as the standard improves and its uses expand. “We are starting to use it with other integrations, such as archiving systems,” Myers says. —GW
“It offers a number of efficiencies, and a number of our clients have [implemented it with] live logs, which has been an enormous and very benefi cial change to broadcast work flows,” says Crist Myers, president and CEO of Myers Information Systems.
But so far, integrations using BXF have proceeded at a modest pace, generally occurring when stations acquire new automation systems.
“We are finally seeing beta examples of it being put to use,” says Eric Mathewson, founder and CEO at WideOrbit. “Everyone believes it is a technology that has the capability to improve operations. But I don’t see a big groundswell of support from stations saying we have to do this because it will cut out a lot of expenses.”
Michael Atkin, founding partner and president of BroadView, notes that most RFPs from stations for upgrades now include a request for BXF.
“But of the ones that go through, less than 50% are actually putting BXF to air,” Atkin notes. “The reality is that it is going to take a long time.”
Others note, however, that demand for BXF will continue to grow as the standard improves and its uses expand. “We are starting to use it with other integrations, such as archiving systems,” Myers says. —GW
One illustration of the intricacies likely to spring from tighter election-cycle inventories can be found in the way stations promote their programs and schedules. Eric Mathewson, founder and CEO at WideOrbit, says a station that over-promotes or under-promotes its programming by only 10% “is essentially throwing 1.5% of their gross inventory out the window because about 15% of gross inventory is promotions.”
During elections, this can be an even greater problem, Mathewson adds, because of tight inventories. “If you can get the same promotional bang using 12% of inventory for promotions rather than 15%, there is obviously an upside,” he says.
To help deal with that problem, WideOrbit had been beta testing the WO Promo product it is now rolling out widely to its customers. “WO Promo automates the placement process in an algorithmic way, so they can get much better use of available inventory,” Mathewson explains.
That is only one step, as vendors have also been pushing to offer a more complete range of solutions that go far beyond simply trafficking.
“What we are seeing from customers is less and less of a desire to buy independent pieces of the puzzle and more interest in buying all the pieces and getting support from just one vendor,” says Michael Atkin, founding partner and president of BroadView, which earlier this year launched OneSolution, an integrated traffic, sales and programming suite.
Offering a complete solution is key, Atkin adds, because of the complexities of constantly upgrading myriad solutions from different vendors. “By the time a broadcaster qualifies the upgrade from one vendor, another vendor has an upgrade,” he notes. “You get to the point where you can’t move forward and end up working with old technology,” which is a major problem for broadcasters trying to expand multiplatform delivery.
Harris, meanwhile, has been working on a number of its products, including a new interactive reporting interface that has been in beta with several clients and will be rolled out wider by the end of the year. And NetGain is a data analytic and business intelligence tool that Harris is planning to install at a broadcaster in the first part of 2012.
The moves are part of a plan to offer a wider array of tools to handle multiple platforms, notes Scott Criley, director of media and work flow at the broadcast communications division of Harris.
“The goal is to have a single place where orders can be entered across different distribution mediums— linear, streaming, VOD, mobile—that is combined with an execution system for those different distribution channels where appropriate, and tied together with a billing capability so they can provide one invoice to clients,” Criley notes.
In providing an integrated solution for its clients, Crist Myers, president and CEO of Myers Information Systems, stresses that the company focused on features that would improve the user interface so that tasks take less time.
“We have added dozens and dozens of new features,” Myers notes. “But it has been a process of adding and collapsing and adding and collapsing to insure the product is usable and intuitive. It is important that we are simplifying things for the user, because traffic and sales are being asked to do so much more than they were just a few years ago.”
That effort has helped produce a very high retention rate of 97% in the last 25 years, while attracting new clients, Myers adds.
At Pilat Media, two notable developments have been improvements to the vendor’s IBMS OmniCast back-office scheduling system for on-demand content, along with its dashboards.
“What we’ve done is given them a single point of view into their whole operations and the status of their work process,” notes John Larrabee, VP of the Americas at Pilat.
E-mail comments to gpwin@oregoncoast.com
Talkback
No related content found.
Most Popular Pages
-
No Top Articles
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
